A week or so ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for Raw Zucchini and Tomato Lasagna. The recipe had “easy” written all over it, so I gave it a whirl. It called for Raw Almond “Cheese,” but I wanted to try out GO Veggie! Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Cream Cheese Alternative and Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Mozzarella-Style Shreds instead.

First, I made my own version of the zucchini lasagna. I cut the zucchini in half and then sliced from top to bottom for the “lasagna” strips. Next came GO Veggie! Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Chive & Garlic Cream Cheese Alternative. I topped each piece of zucchini with the cream cheese alternative and added sliced baby tomatoes and onions. As I was making it, I started to think the lasagna would be pretty bland, but since cooking isn’t my strong suit, I wasn’t sure what to do to kick it up a notch. I simply finished stacking the lasagna and figured I’d taste it and take it from there.

Ok, I’ll admit my “lasagna” doesn’t look anything like the picture from the recipe, but it tasted great! That’s what matters, right?

As it turns out, the chive and garlic cream cheese alternative was so flavorful, I didn’t even need to add anything else in the mix. It spread easily onto the zucchini and didn’t have that “fake” cheese taste – just a good combination of spices. I didn’t eat the lasagna immediately (I was taking pictures for this post!) and the cream cheese alternative did get a little runny. I’m not sure if it was from the moisture of the zucchini or maybe the tomato juice, but I’d recommend eating this right away to avoid any dripping.

I still wanted to try the GO Veggie! Mozzarella-Style Shreds and I bought too much zucchini, so I thought about making the same lasagna, but in a cooked version. As I tried to figure out how I wanted to tackle it (Do I just bake it? Fry the zucchini?), my friend suggested making a zucchini parm instead, since I had already had the lasagna. I thought it was a great idea and got started.

Zucchini slices & GO Veggie! Dairy-Free Mozzarella-Style Slices

This time, I cut the zucchini into circles (much easier than trying to cut the thin, straight and evenly-sized slices!). I went the less-healthy route and breaded them with gluten-free bread crumbs and fried them in the pan. My plan was to lightly fry the zucchini, then top it with sauce and the GO Veggie! Mozzarella-Style Cheese and bake in the oven to heat the sauce and melt the cheese. As you can see from my picture, I had the heat up way too high and cooked the zucchini longer than I planned to. I wasn’t sure if baking the zucchini would now make it overcooked, so I just added my toppings and microwaved it to heat it up.

Frying the zucchini

I wanted to make a hot dish with the mozzarella-style shreds because I think the test of a good cheese alternative is if it melts. It did! I tasted a few pieces of the shreds before I added it to the dish. I definitely prefer this cheese alternative when it’s melted rather than using it right from the bag for something like a salad topping.

I’ll definitely be making this again – so good!

As I was making my zucchini dishes, I started to think about other ways I could use the gluten-free and dairy-free alternatives from GO Veggie! From a spread for a gluten-free bagel to these Stuffed Tomatoes with Gluten-Free Cracker Topping, the possibilities are endless!

Go Veggie! makes a lot of dairy-free, lactose-free and gluten-free alternatives other than the cream cheese and mozzarella-style shreds. You can check out all their products and even get some recipes at www.GoVeggieFoods.com.